Blackhawks' camp hierarchy reflects Louis Crevier's quick ascension

There are too many players in Blackhawks training camp for all of them to fit into the primary locker room at Fifth Third Arena, even with a few spare single-person lockers crammed into the corners.

Thus, the team also utilizes an auxiliary locker room on the opposite side of the main rink. Players who have played at least one NHL game get to be in the primary room; prospects who haven't made it to the big leagues yet get crammed into the auxiliary room.

In the span of a year, prospect defenseman Louis Crevier has jumped over that moat — and done so much faster than expected for a 2020 seventh-round pick. His 24 NHL appearances last season came somewhat out of the blue.

"It's not a ton [of experience], but it's a lot compared to where I was a year ago," Crevier said. "I was on the other side, not sitting here. ... There's a big step between the NHL and AHL in terms of talent. You can get a guy on the fourth line who's been a 50-goal scorer in juniors. Everyone is really talented, and you have to adjust your playing style."

The towering 6-8 blueliner has stabilized his weight around 240 pounds but focused on solidifying his core muscles during his summer training, since it takes a lot of middle-body strength to keep his lanky frame moving the way he wants.

He made his 2024 preseason debut Friday in the Hawks' 2-0 road loss against the Red Wings. The Hawks sent to Detroit a prospect-heavy lineup that featured Lukas Reichel, Frank Nazar and Nick Lardis as the first forward line.

Crevier is battling for the sixth or seventh defenseman role on the Hawks' opening-night depth chart, but his unique developmental path — ascending so swiftly from a third-pairing guy in Rockford in 2022-23 to a third-pairing guy in Chicago in 2023-24 — allows him to not stress too much about the outcome.

"Yes, it's a training camp where you want to do things right, but really it's a year-long camp," he said. "It doesn't mean, if you don't make the opening roster, [that] you'll never play. Same thing if you make the roster: it doesn't mean you'll never go down."

No thinking

Nazar is one of those players crammed into a spare locker in the corner, since his three Hawks appearances at the end of last season put him at the very bottom of the totem pole among players with NHL experience.

He fit in seamlessly during those three games in April, but it actually took him longer to shake off the summer rust and adjust to the pace of the NHL in the preseason opener Wednesday.

"When I'm thinking too much, [that's] when I will stop and try to read the play and think about what I need to do or what's going to happen," Nazar said. "When I'm moving my feet, it's just reaction — no thinking, just doing."

The Hawks' second-line center spot remains available, although he will probably have to perform even better during the final week of camp than he has so far to convince the team he doesn't need some fine-tuning in Rockford first.

Maintenance list

There's a growing list of players currently absent from Hawks camp due to "maintenance," with no specific injury designations. On Friday, Wyatt Kaiser missed his fourth straight day, Alec Martinez missed his second straight day and Taylor Hall also sat out.

Coach Luke Richardson doesn't seem worried about any of them being more than day-to-day concerns, though.